Don’t Let the Mud Stick

I’m sure you’ve heard the adage, “Throw enough mud at the wall, some of it will stick.” According to Wiktionary.org, the origin of this saying is the following:

Possibly based on a technique of building wattle and daub walls by throwing daub (mud mixed with straw) at the wattle throwing hard enough that some obtained a good key and remained in place, (compare slapdash, a pebbledash effect produced by throwing pebbles at a rendered wall). Sense 2 is probably influenced by throw dirt enough, and some will stick.

The Wiktionary.org explanation continues by describing how this proverb is applied today:

1. Try the same thing (or similar things) often enough, and, even if the general standard is poor, sometimes one will be successful.
2. If enough (perhaps false or reckless) accusations are made against a person (or organisation), his reputation will suffer, whether or not this is deserved.

Throwing “mud” is a tactic often used by many of the opponents of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum. One way that mud is thrown at AiG in the hope that some of it sticks is when certain evolutionists claim that creationists can’t be real scientists or that AiG and the Creation Museum don’t do any scientific research.

Last week the Creation Museum announced that another exceptional exhibit is being added to the museum. A world-class fossilized skeleton of an allosaur, recently donated to the museum, will join our spectacular array of exhibits on Memorial Day 2014. But, as with most of the things we do at Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, regardless of how well researched the content is or what qualifications our scientists and researchers have, the secular world fires back with criticisms.

In a news article discussing our new allosaur skeleton, Dan Phelps, president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society and a regular critic of the Creation Museum, made some very negative comments about the quality of research performed here:

“The Creation Museum has asserted the specimen to be evidence of Noah’s flood without any actual research,” said Dan Phelps, president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society, said in an email Friday.

“Real vertebrate paleontologists study the surrounding sediments and the geological context of their finds,” he added. “Of course since the Creation Museum doesn’t do scientific research, all (it) really has done is obtain a nice display trophy.”

These are bold and, quite frankly, absolutely false assertions. Our full-time creation scientists as well as the ones who work with our ministry from time to time are experts in their fields and are accomplished among both creation scientists and secular scientists. It is important that the world realizes that a belief in evolution or millions of years is not a prerequisite to performing solid scientific research.

Our lead article on the AiG website today is a description of the work conducted by the creation scientists who work full-time at Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, plus others associated with our ministry. The article also includes their credentials and achievements in their fields.

Don’t let the mud that Dan Phelps and others like him throw at AiG deceive you. In 2008, Phelps called those of us who work at AiG “morons.” You can read my blog post about that comment.

I encourage you to read today’s web article and then to pass it on to others so they will make sure the mud thrown at our scientists—who were called “morons”—will not stick.